1. “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundlesss day in
the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I
had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of
country; and at last I found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within
view of the melancholy House of Usher.” (1839) Edgar Allan Poe “The Fall of the
House of Usher”

2. “Dear Son: I never had a Pleasure in [of] obtaining any
little Anecdotes of my ancestors.” (1771) Benjamin Franklin The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

3. “A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and
gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and
others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of
which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” The Scarlet Letter(1850) Nathaniel Hawthorne

4. “I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber
city – and go at things as have have taught myself, free style, and will make a
record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent
knock, sometimes a not so innocent.” Saul BellowAdventures of Augie
Marcy(1953)

5. “All this happened, more or less.” Kurt Vonnegut Slaughter-house Five (1968)

6. “Howard Roark laughed.” Ayn Rand The Fountainhead (1943)

7. “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long
precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to
interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery
part of the world.” Herman Melville Moby
Dick (1851)

8. “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life
more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon
tea.”Henry James Portrait of a Lady (1881)

9. “Through the fence, between the flower spaces, I could
see them hitting.” William Faulkner The
Sound and the Fury(1929)

10. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in
the house knew it and so did the children.” Toni Morrison Beloved (1987)

11. “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of
Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing
title, but it meant a lot to Cohn.” Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises (1926)

12. “The last time I’d worked in Port City had been in 1989
when an important software tycoon had hired me to retrieve his wife, who had
run off with a fisherman named Costa.” Robert B. Parker Walking Shadow (1994)

13. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave
me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my head ever since.” F. Scott
Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby (1925)

14. “I first heard of Antonia on what seemed to me an
interminable journey across the great midland plain of North America.” Willa
CatherMy Antonia (1918)

15. “Here is an account of a few years in the life of
Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.”
E.Annie ProulxThe Shipping News (1993)

16. “A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened
before, but there is nothing to compare to it now.” Thomas Pynchon Gravity’s Rainbow (193)